


Where Dead Snow Angels Fly

by flecksofpoppy



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Advent Challenge 2011, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2011-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 20:47:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/287686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flecksofpoppy/pseuds/flecksofpoppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Advent Challenge, Winter 2011. Prompt was: "Vaan - where dead snow angels fly."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Dead Snow Angels Fly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wingeddserpent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingeddserpent/gifts).



The wind is stronger than he predicted. Penelo had warned him in advance, but Vaan has never been one to be cautious.

 _"Did you know that over on the other side of the world, they make snow angels because it's always cold?" Penelo asks. She's laughing as she waves her arms and legs in the sand, flapping her limbs until there's some kind of angel shape indented there._

 _"It'll just blow away," Vaan replies, kicking at the sand half-heartedly. The sun is hot._

It comes quick now, screaming around the edges of the airship. Vaan made a mistake; Penelo is there, next to him, looking steadfastly into the storm. She smiles faintly.

 _"If I kill enough rats," he says, "maybe I can buy a castle too. Everyone can come and we can all live there."_

 _Penelo laughs lightly, splashing the water that lives under the city._

 _"We all live here," she says. "If you'd stop stealing things, maybe I wouldn't worry and I could have dreams like that too."_

"We'll be fine," she says. There are tears in her voice, but Penelo's always been brave. "We've seen worse."

Vaan tilts the wheel and tries to steer it in the right direction; the snow looks like a white flower exploding, blossoming in front of them, a siren calling, come into the cold.

"Look," she says, the flakes catching against her skin. "It's like diamonds. Snow. Do you remember when--"

 _"The sand looks like little diamonds," she says, laughing lightly._

 _The sand sticks to her skin, and Vaan looks away. The heat rising in him is not from the sun._

 _"No," he says, "it looks like frostbite."_

 _He heard it in a tavern. The word: "frostbite," sounds as foreign and mythlike as Bhujerba, a city in the sky._

 _It's all just tears flowing through the Garamsythe waterways where dreams live with the rats._

Somewhere in the howl, he hears wings flapping; Penelo's warm hands; tears; the black outline of shapes in white crystals.

Ghosts, there in the storm. Where dead snow angels fly, and make dreams come true.


End file.
